Aliam Vita
by Aribh1306
Summary: They would always meet, it didn't matter how many times they lived. Some times they would love each other but they could eventually come to hate one another in an unfortunate life. [AU]


**A/N:** Not beta read. Prompt given by a lovely Anon on tumblr: five AUs where Tom and Hermione fell in love, and one where they didn't. Inspired by Miss RSS's lovely fic "_Destiny_".

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**1547**

Tom kept his eyes fixed on the crowd in front of him, watching the faces of those unknown people staring at him with a disgusted expression on their faces, sneering at him and calling him names. He preferred to look at their ugly faces instead of watching the scene that was going on next to him. The sentence being given by the judge seemed to be muffled by the sobs Hermione didn't seem to be able to restrain along with her whispered prayers.

The crowd started to cheer and encourage the executioner once the sentence was finished. The girl's sobs were now hidden under the screams of the people watching them. He closed his eyes and wished he could do the same with his ears in order to avoid listening to the sound of the blade cutting through flesh and, then, of something hitting the wooden platform where they stood.

The judge now read his sentence. Witchcraft, devil's worship, conspiracy against God… They only performed magic. Both he and Hermione had been raised as Catholics and, in his case, it had been only recently that he had discovered he could make magic. She was only helping him to learn how to control his own magic and avoid being found or hurting other people. Magic did open numerous new doors for them but they never thought about it as a way to defy their God or to make others suffer – although, once he discovered it, Tom thought about how useful magic could be to get back at those who made his life miserable and how he could manage to rise above that pathetic society of theirs. But these thoughts only lasted until he told Hermione about then and the girl spent a good time lecturing him about how their magic should not be used for ends like those.

Still, he was now being sentenced to death due to the simple fact he was born with magic in his blood. Maybe the traditionalists were right; Muggles were, indeed, inferior creatures that feared the unknown. They should have believed them, had they done so, Hermione would be alive and he wouldn't be just a few minutes away from his death.

Tom looked down to his own hands, wondering if the Muggles knew the ropes they used to tie his wrists wouldn't be working if it weren't for the spells the traditionalists had put around the place. Muggles thought they were getting hid of witchcraft when it was it was the elite of wizarding society that sponsored their bloodbath against the simpler and dirtier wizards and witches. His eyes caught sight of the blood soaking the wooden floor, coming from the spot where Hermione once knelt, and felt his stomach lurch before looking up to the top of the buildings that stood around the square. There were numerous crows watching and squawking loudly.

Look at the bright side, he thought. There would be no more hiding, no more miserable life on the dirty streets of London, no more serving the elite… Also, Hermione would be there, wherever they would go after it all ended.

He didn't see when the crows flew away after being scared off by the shouts and screams of the crowd.

**1914 – 1917**

They were both magical and that should be something that would easily unite them but, instead, the first thing they felt towards each other was an immense distaste. Foma Fomitch Zagadkov worked and lived at the court, along with many more wizards and witches whose job was to help the Tsar to rule, while Germiona Pyotrovna Kolzhoznikina was the daughter of a dentist that had way too much affinity for the Communist party.

They met at a party at the Laskovs house. The family was not rich but was pure when it came to magic and that was enough to make their not-so-big house be filled with numerous witches and wizards during the said party. Even those whose lives were resumed to the court enjoyed spending some time with other magical people and, even though the red haired Laskovs were not an example of the elegancy most Muggles imagined them to have, they were magical and that was enough.

The girl's parents were the ones to first talk to him. Being a healer at the Winter Palace was enough to attract the Muggle couple's attention, as they were very much interested in any kind of Medicine. The talk was actually enjoyable, Foma couldn't deny he did enjoy being the centre of attention once in a while, until Germiona showed up and, soon, started to talk about those insufferable communist ideas.

After that first meeting, he found himself running into Germiona Pyotrovna every now and then. Most of the times he crossed her on the streets while she gave enthusiastic speeches for the passers by and it was not only once or twice that he had to grab her by the arm and pull her away from the crowd once he saw the policemen approaching. That had earned him a really annoyed witch that refused to listen to him and that tried to curse him every time they met. At first, it was irritating, having to deal with an angry girl but, after a while, Foma discovered Germiona actually let her bright ideas escape from her mouth some times when trying to give him a lecture on the ideas she believed in.

When the Tsar and his family were killed and the hope for the court to be re-established was destroyed, the only thing he could do was to flee. The Communists wouldn't take wizards and witches that once had worked for the Tsarist system in fear of them rebelling against the new government, so the only hope they had was to leave the country, which was a sad alternative. Russia was the most magical place on Earth, in Foma's opinion, and to leave it would imply to leave behind part of his magic.

And so he left, along with other witches, wizards and Muggles. He spent a good time travelling with the Yusupovs, as he had been one of wizards to be consulted when the time of Rasputin's murder came and, for agreeing with the plan of finishing the Mad Monk, he had gained the trust of the young Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov. He left Russia and its glory. He left Russia and its magic. He left Russia and Germiona Pyotrovna.

**1925**

Hermione Granger was a pretty girl in a purple dress the first night he saw her. On the second one, she was still a pretty girl but now in a green dress. On the third, it was a blue dress she was wearing but she was still a pretty girl. Not that she had noticed him, after all, not many people would pay much attention to the pianist when they could look at the singer on the stage but he could pay attention to everyone on the dance floor on the pauses between the songs.

"That was lovely," she said to him one night, leaning over the stage's edge after walking away from the red haired young man who always made her company. After that, before leaving, Hermione Granger would always approach the stage and whisper a few compliments on his piano playing. He felt way more flattered than he should but that didn't seem to be a problem.

One night, the red haired boy appeared on his own. Actually, no, he appeared with a blonde girl with bobbed hair, pink dress and pink lace on her head and there was no sight of Hermione. He played his music as he was supposed to do while Miss Lovegood sang on the stage, her dreamy voice lulling everyone at the club. Hermione didn't appear for the next three nights and, when she did, the girl came right after him.

She did not mention the ginger – Ron, from what Abraxas had told him – and they kept chatting until the last costumer left and the waitresses were left to clean their mess. Hermione tried to play a song of two on the piano, saying that her mother had once taught her, but failed miserably and gave up, letting Tom take over the piano whenever they wanted to hear something nice.

She kissed him that night. It was a chaste kiss and he couldn't really decide what he liked more: the kiss or the fact the girl allowed him to walk her home after they left the club.

When she wished him good night, before entering her house, leaving him standing in the middle of the silent street, Hermione Granger was wearing a black dress and looked prettier than every other girl he had ever seen.

**1941**

When Hermione saw that soldier's body lying on that gurney in the middle of the hospital's corridor, she didn't know if he would make it. His wounds were hazardous and the chances of him developing an infection were really high but, no matter what the odds may have been, she treated him because that was her job.

His name, she later learned, was Tom Riddle. Wounded in battle after a bomb exploded near the place where he was hiding and sent back to London in order to be treated. The doctors at the battlefield had done what they could for him but there was no way he would fully recover in a place that was not a proper hospital, which was the reason he was under her care now.

During the days, he was an annoying bastard, in her opinion. Intelligent, yes, but the kind of intelligent person who always made sure to show off how his wit put him above others. He had an incredibly sharp tongue that didn't need much effort to make the doctors and nurses feel uncomfortable around him. At the same time, when he was in a good mood, that sharp tongue of his was able to create the loveliest compliments and flatter every person that walked past him. Hermione knew better than to trust those, he thought the rude Riddle was the real one.

During the nights, though, he became a scared child. He would wake up crying and screaming, claiming to be back in the battlefield and seeing his companions die in front of his eyes. It was a common thing to happen to soldiers but Tom Riddle would feel immensely ashamed of himself as soon as he recovered from his fits of panic. The nights during which she spent next to him, calming him down were longer than usual but she enjoyed them more than she should.

Hermione had been feeling happier than usual that day as she walked to the hospital. Tom Riddle had been almost fully recovered – his wounds, miraculously, didn't get infected at all and were healing perfectly well under her assistance – and, soon, would be released to go home. Nothing could go wrong from now on.

Later that day, at the hospital, Mr. Riddle was greeted by a red haired nurse whose eyes were reddened, as if she had been crying for hours. Nurse Weasley explained to him she would be taking care of him from that day on. The ginger girl's news added to the gossips that filled the rooms earlier that day, about another bomb attack that had shaken London, were enough to make him understand what had happened.

**2011**

Doctor Hermione Granger had never liked death. Maybe that was the reason she hadn't chosen to work at the Emergency service or as a surgeon. These jobs implied in being in touch with death all the time, so she chose Psychiatry. Yes, death was present but it was not in the same way other doctors experienced it. So, when she met that man who seemed to be so fascinated by death, the woman couldn't help but judge him. What kind of person would love being around death so much that they would choose a career that involved living almost 24 hours over a corpse? That seemed to be rather sick.

Not that she had never met other forensic pathologists before. Cormac McLaggen was one and he didn't seem sick or twisted. He enjoyed his job and did it well but Doctor Tom Riddle? He was mad about it. He spoke about the dead bodies he opened up in his morgue with such a satisfaction that made her wonder if it hadn't been him that had put those people there. He talked about death as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world and as if corpses were beautiful. Death was his reason to live.

"The dead teach us way more than the living, doctor," he had once told her, the day Hermione proposed to help him with an autopsy, watching the man finish to sawing the ribs of the corpse of a woman, before grabbing her ribcage and pulling it up, opening her chest. "They are at our service and will never lie to you. They are beautiful, in their own way, and they do not bother us."

It was strange to watch as Riddle opened those bodies, taking out every organ that had once been vital for those people while a satisfied glee took over his blue eyes. To dissect those bodies was the work of an artist, he had once told her, and of a detective, too. After accompanying him during numerous autopsies – because, although she did not like death, her curiosity was way too big, just as her sudden admiration for the medical examiner -, the woman noticed he was right. Tom Riddle was an artist when he leaned over a dead body, holding his scalpel firmly between his fingers and working his way into the corpse. He was an artist when he took out their hearts and lungs with such gentleness she sometimes didn't see doctors treating their living patients. He, too, was an detective when he discovered what had led certain person to death after studying every bit of their bodies.

And, though Hermione didn't like death, she did enjoy the work of a good artist.

** 1991 - 1998**

When Hermione Granger first heard of Lord Voldemort, it was through a book of History of Magic. It was also the same time when she heard about the boy who would one day become her best friend.

She grew up fearing the dark wizard whose ideas had turned the wizarding world upside down and, later, hating him for making the place that should be beautiful and magical become a nightmare. She fought against him more than once, standing by Harry Potter and the end of the Death Eaters. She had dared to call him by his name and not by the title of You-Know-Who. She had cursed him and told herself she would get back at him for making her do such a horrible thing as making her parents forget they ever had a daughter. She proudly destroyed part of his soul and, consequently, helped to kill him.

During all those years during which Hermione Granger stood against Voldemort, she never once felt remorse for doing anything against him. That man deserved every duel he lost, every spell that failed on him, every time Harry defeated him, every stab his horcruxes took… So, when Lord Voldemort's body hit the floor of Hogwarts' Great Hall, his red eyes widened and staring at the nothing, the girl actually felt triumphant. They finally had defeated the man that had haunted so many people's lives, they had killed him and she felt so very proud of herself of being part of the events that had led to the fall of Tom Riddle.

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**A/N:** The last one is not an AU but ok. Now, on the Russian one:

_- Foma Fomitch Zagadkov:_ Foma (pronounces Famá) is the Russian form of Thomas. Fomitch is the patronymic name for a man whose father is called Thomas. Zagadka (загадка) means "riddle". (btw, thanks to KatherineNotGreat for telling me that Foma is the Russian version of Thomas, I was looking for it everywhere and couldn't fint the information).

_- Germiona Pyotrovna Kolzhoznikina:_ Germione is how Hermione was translated into the Russian versions of HP from what I saw. Pyotrovna is the patronymic name for women whose father is called Pyotr (we don't know Mr. Granger's name, so...). Kolzhoznik (колхозник) means "farmer", which is the meaning of Granger.

- _Laskov_: Laska (ласка) means "weasel". So, yeps, the Laskovs are the Weasleys.


End file.
